Cameron’s election errors, by Ashcroft: Tory grandee steps down with a bitter rebuke

Lord Ashcroft is to quit as the Tories’ deputy chairman – after launching a stinging attack on David Cameron’s failure to win a ‘thumping majority’ in the election.

The billionaire Tory donor, who is estimated to have given £15 million to the party over the years, will step down next week.

It brings an end to a role in which he became one of the most controversial figures in British politics.

In a parting shot Michael Ashcroft, who has been deputy chairman since 2005, will today publish a withering critique of the party’s election campaign tactics this year.

Controversial: Lord Ashcroft has slammed the Conservative party's election campaign just months after he admitted avoiding tax on his vast overseas fortune

In the book, titled Minority Verdict: The Conservative Party, the Voters and the 2010 Election, he accuses Mr Cameron of making a ‘strategic mistake’ in agreeing to take part in Britain’s first televised election debates.

The debates ‘changed the narrative and rhythm of the campaign’ and handed Nick Clegg a priceless opportunity to promote the Liberal Democrats, he said.

He added: ‘Voters who had been reluctantly concluding that they were going to have to grit their teeth and vote Conservative now found that a more palatable alternative also seemed more credible than they had previously thought.’

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The Conservatives failed to capitalise on the double-digit lead they held in opinion polls throughout 2008 and 2009 – and instead allowed this to be frittered away in the final months.

‘Why did these figures not translate into a thumping majority?’ he writes.

‘The key lies in the gap between the change people wanted and the change people thought we were offering.’

The Conservatives also wasted too much time and money on ‘unnecessary and counterproductive attacks on Gordon Brown and Labour, which meant that voters were not clear about our own plans’, according to Lord Ashcroft.

The party failed to convince voters that it represented real change. He continued: ‘Going into the election, many voters had little clear idea of what we stood for or what we intended to do in Government.

‘We did not make as much progress as we should have done in transforming the party’s brand, and in reassuring former Labour voters that we had changed and were on their side.

Leader: David Cameron was told on Friday that Lord Ashcroft intended to step down from the party board

‘This in turn gave Labour’s scare campaigns about Conservative plans more resonance than they would otherwise have had, and meant that, for many, voting

Conservative was a much harder decision than it might have been.’

Lord Ashcroft also expressed his frustration that he did not receive greater support from the party leadership when he was forced to admit in March that he had non-dom status and had not been paying income tax on his worldwide earnings.

Labour pointed out that he had reneged on assurances given in 2000 that he would pay taxes in the UK when he was made a life peer.

‘I think they could have mounted a more spirited defence of the situation,’ he said of his party colleagues.

‘It did prove to me that the Labour attack team was much more effective than the Conservative defence team.’

In an interview yesterday Lord Ashcroft, a close friend of William Hague, said he believed the Foreign Secretary would quit politics to pursue an ‘alternative career’ in the future.

Lord Ashcroft’s past books include Smell the Coffee: A wake-up call for the Conservative Party, and Dirty politics Dirty times: My fight with Wapping and New Labour, both published in 2005.

A Conservative spokesman last night confirmed Lord Ashcroft was stepping down and thanked him for his ‘very significant contribution’ to the party.

He added: ‘Michael helped to fight a great campaign and we’re all extremely grateful for his tireless work as deputy chairman throughout the campaign.

‘This book is part of the “lessons learnt” exercise and we should welcome it.’